I can (and do!) make excellent almond milk at home. Compared with hauling boxes home from the store, mine looks and tastes about the same, is nutritionally the same, costs 1/10 as much, takes literally 30 seconds of effort, has far less container waste, and I get buckets of foodie cred every time I mention “my home made almond milk”.

Now pay attention because it’s really hard to make home made almond milk. Ready?

How I arrived at this recipe: I compared the nutrition facts on a carton of Almond Breeze unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk with a jar of Mara Natha Almond Butter. I noticed that a 30 calorie, 1 cup serving of almond milk had almost exactly the same nutritional content as a 1 teaspoon serving of almond butter for calories, fat, carbs, fiber & protein (I used simple algebra and a spreadsheet, you can do it too). I saw all kinds of recipes online for almond milk that involved meticulous soaking of dried almonds and long blend times and figured, “almond butter is easier and I’ve got it. Let’s try blending it!” And darn if it didn’t come out great.

I did a blind taste test with my fiancee and her comments were:

Color was roughly the same

Taste was similar except one was more vanilla-y (that would be the vanilla flavored almond milk)

The purchased almond milk was a tiny bit creamier. She didn’t think it was better or worse. It’s no wonder she noticed, Almond Breeze adds calcium carbonate, tapioca starch, carrageenan, and sunflower lecithin explicitly to improve the mouth feel

I noticed that the home-made smelled pleasantly nuttier when it was at room temperature